BUSH ROMANCE.

Hokitika Guardian, 30 May 1924, Page 3

BUSH ROMANCE.

SONGS TO iuH C'AT TLI'

SYDNEY, .May 22. Pastoral minstrels who sang as they watched their Hocks and herds are lamilinr figures in the story-books, but they are figures oi romance, and are not generally associated with the rough

hard life of the Australian hush, lit; it is possible that singing to flocks an herds in olden times had its uses a

well as its pleasures, and that such a practice as has grown up in the farhack fenceless tracts of Australia is really a discovery of a useful method of control over animal.-. This interesting question has been raised as a result of a long journey through Central Australia which has just lieeii completed by the Minister for AA’orks. .Air iStewart. Out in the wilds one evening .Air Stewart came upon a travelling mob of three or four hundred cattle on the way from the remote Barkley Tableland .to Adelaide. They were quietly grazing oil the hanks of Barrow Creek, and there the Minister decided to spend his night too. for human companionship in those silent tracts is a luxury too rare to he missed, and an exchange of yarns by the camp fire soon demonstrated the equality of the hush. Minister and stockmen spending a merry time together. It proved an interesting night for the Minister. On the Long Route, as that down Central Australia is known, there are few cattle yards, and the stockmen take shifts in riding round the cattle all night in order to keep them together. Darkness had hardly fallen than the Minister was surprised to hear the strains ol a popular music-hall ditty coming in snatches on the breeze. For a while lie listened with pleasure, asking no questions, hut as il continued at intervals first from this direction, then from that, he remarked to his companions upon the musical turn ol mind that the stockmen laughed heartily, and told many snugs and entertained himself with them mi liis long night watches. The stockmen laughed heartily and told the Minister that the man did not sing for his own amusement, hut. for the benefit ol the cattle. And so it turned out. for when another stockman relieved the musical swain, he too proved in have an excellent repertoire for the entertainment of his charges. The drovers, it appeared, have found that, their control over the cattle is enormously assisted by singing to them. As they ride around they sing continuously, and it has the died of preventing the cattle from stampeding. If the continuous crooning is not kept on a rider coining suddenly upon

a 1,0“ '• • cattle in the dark is liable to strike terror into them and make them dash oil' into the darkness in a panic. So all night around a call! camp in the outback the denizens of the hush are kept apprised of the latest things of the hoards. Another romantic feature of the entile camp that the Minister encountered was the presence of two girl stock-rid-ers. and he testifies to their wonderful skill in this arduous work. The girls were members of a lamilv of lour, who with the mother and father, were taking the cattle over the Long Runt' 1 , ami the father stood proudly by with the Minister as the girls II and 17 veals of age showed their prowess on horseback.